Editorial December 31, 1910 Issue

"THE WORKS OF THE FATHER"

Archibald McLellan

When Jesus was questioned by the followers of John the Baptist concerning his claim to the Messiahship, he did not at once reply, but continued his ministry to the sick and suffering,—the "works" whose fame had reached John even in his prison. Then, turning to his questioners, he bade them go and tell John what they themselves had witnessed. Again, when the Jews came to him in the temple and said, "If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly," his reply was the same: "The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." They might doubt his assertion that he was, as Peter later declared, "the Christ, the Son of the living God," but the works he wrought through the power of that same "living God" were an indisputable proof of his sonship.

The doubter, the skeptic, the unthinking, are still abroad in the land, and Christian Scientists must prove the truth of the religion which they profess in the same way as did the Master—by works, not words. Christian Science is essentially a religion of works, and these works must be in line with the Principle from which they emanate. Mere platitudes and protestations, or, as our Leader has said, "hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love" (Science and Health, p. 367),—these travesties of truth do not and cannot open the prison doors for the sick.

The need for all Christian Scientists is that they do the "works of the Father," just as Christ Jesus did them, not that they may be seen of men, but because these works are the natural and normal results of right thinking,—milestones which mark the way of salvation. When men are so endued with the spirit of the Master that they are enabled to heal the sick and the sinning intuitively, instead of having to argue themselves into a frame of mind which is temporary, and therefore achieves only a temporary result,—then and then only will Christian Science have its full fruitage.

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